The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-10-13


our northern climate the temptation to
heating stimulants is most mighty and
millions succunb. When a mans habits
go wrong the church drops him, the social
circle drops him, good influences drop
him, we all drop HIM. Of ali the men
who get off track but few ever get on
again. Near my summer residence there
is life saving station on the beach. There
are all the ropes and rockets. the boats,
the machinery for getting people off ship
wrecks. Summer before last | saw there
fifteen or twenty men who were break
fasting after having just escaped with
their lives and nothing more. Up and
down cur. coasts are built these useful
structures, and the mariners know it and
they feel that if they are driven into the
breakers there will be apt from shore to
come a rescue. The churches of God
ought to be so many life saving stations,
not 50 much to help those who are in
smooth waters, but those who have been
shipwrecked. Come, let US run out the
lifeboats? And who will man them? We
do not apreach enough to such men;
we have not enough faith in their re-
lease. Alas! if when they come to hear
us we are laboriousiy trying to show the
difference between sublapsarianisln and
supralapsarianism, while they have a
thousand vipers of remorse and despair
coiling around and biting their immortal
spirits. The church is not chiefly for
goodish sort OF men whose prOclivities are
all right and who could get to heaven
praying and singing in their own homes.
1t is on the beach to help the drowning.
Those bad cases are the cases that God
likes to take hold of. He can save a big
| sinner as well as a small sinner, and
when a man calls earnestly to God for
help he will go out TO deliver such one.
If it were necessary God would come
down from the sky, followed by all the
artillery of heaven and million angels
with drawn swords. Get 100 such re-
| deemed men in each of your churches,
| and nothing could stand before them, for
such men are generally warm hearted
| and enthusiastic. No formal prayers
then. 10 heartless singing then. No
cold cOnventionaii5ms then.
Furthermore, the destitute children of
| the street offer field of work coInpara-
lively unoccupied. The uncared for
children are in the majority in Brooklyn
and most of our cities. When they grow
Up, if unreformed, they viii Outvote
your children, and they will govern your
children. The whisky ring viii hatch
out other whisky rings, and grog shops
win xiii with their horrid stencil public
sobriety, unless the church Of God rises
up with outstretched arms ard enfolds
this dying population in her bosom. Pub
lie schools cannot do it. Art galleries
cannot do it. Blackwell's Island cannot
do it. Eimshouses cannot do it. New
York Tonbs and Raymond Street jail can
not do it. Sing Sing cannot do it.
Church of God, wake up to your magniti-
cent mission! You can do it. Get
somewhere, somehow to work.
The Prussian cavalry mount by putting
their right foot into the stirrup, while the
American cavalry mount by putting then
left foot into the stirrup. I don't care
how you mount your war charger, il
you only get into this battle for God and
get there soon, right stirrup, or left stir
rup, oE no stirTup at all. The unoccupied
fields are all around us, and why should
we build on another mans foundation!
That God has called this church to especial
work no one can doubt Its history has
been miraculous. God has helped US at
every step, and though the wheels of its
history have made many revolutions
they have all been forward, and never
backward, and now with our borders en-
larged and with important re-enforce-
ments, we start on a new campaign. Al
Sharon Springs, nineteen years ago, while
III the park, asked God if he had any
particular work for me to do, to make il
plain and I would do it. He revealed tC
me the style of church we were to have
and be revealed to me the architecture
and he Revealed to me the modes Of wor.
Ship and He revealed to me my work
and as far as III my ignorance and weak
ness have seen the right way have triei
to walk in it. We decide that we wanted
it a soul saving church. and it has beer
almost a constant outpOuring of the Holy
Ghost. Ye powers of darkness, ye devils
in hell. we mean to snatch from your do
minion other multitudes, if God viii helF
us. | have heard of what was called the
''thundering legion" It was in 170 ;
part Of the Roman army to which some
Christians belonged, and their prayers, j
was said, were answered by thunder
and lightning and hail and tenn
pest, which overthrew an invad
ing army and saved the empire
And I would to God that this churcl
may be so mighty in prayer and worl
that it would become laundering Legion
before which the forces Of sin might b
routed, and the gates of he'll might trem
bic. Now that the autumn mas come
and the Gospel ship has been repaired
, and enlarged, it is time to launch her fo
another voyage. Heave away now. lads
Shake out the reefs in the foretopsail
Come, O heavenly wind, and fill the can
vast Jesus aboard will assure our safety
Jesus on the sea will beckon us forward
Jesus on the shining shore will welcom
us into harbor. ''And so it came to pas
that they all escaped safe to land"